me persuade you Viscount Lynton,” said Lucio, looking at him with his dazzling inscrutable smile—“just for the fun of the thing! If you do not feel justified in staking money, stake something trifling and merely nominal, for the sake of seeing whether the luck will turn”—and here he took up a counter—“This frequently represents fifty pounds,—let it represent for once something that is not valuable like money,—your soul, for example!” A burst of laughter broke from all the men. Lucio laughed softly with them.
“We all have, I hope, enough instruction in modern science to be aware that there is no such thing as a soul in existence”—he continued. “Therefore, in proposing it as a stake for this game at baccarat, I really propose less than one hair of your head, because the hair is a something, and the soul is a nothing! Come! Will you risk that non-existent quantity for the chance of winning a thousand pounds?”
The Viscount drained off the last drop of brandy, and turned upon us, his eyes flushing mingled derision and defiance.
“Done!” he exclaimed; whereupon the party sat down.
The game was brief,—and in its rapid excitement, almost breathless. Six or seven minutes sufficed, and Lucio rose, the winner. He smiled as he pointed to the counter which had represented Viscount Lynton’s last stake.
“I have won!” he said quietly. “But you owe me nothing, my dear Viscount, inasmuch as you risked—Nothing! We played this game simply for fun. If souls had any existence of course I should claim yours;—I wonder what I should do with it by the way!” He laughed good-humouredly. “What nonsense, isn’t it!—and how thankful we ought to be that we live in advanced days like the present, when such silly superstitions are being swept aside by the march of progress and pure Reason! Good-night! Tempest and I will give you, your full revenge to-morrow,—the luck is sure to change by then, and you will probably have the victory. Again—good-night!”
He held out his hand,—there was a peculiar melting tenderness in his brilliant dark eyes,—an impressive kindness in his manner. Something—I could not tell what—held us all for the moment spellbound as if by enchantment, and several of the players at other tables, hearing of the eccentric stake that had been wagered and lost, looked over at us curiously from a distance. Viscount Lynton, however, professed himself immensely diverted, and shook Lucio’s proffered hand heartily.
“You are an awfully good fellow!” he said, speaking a little thickly and hurriedly—“And I assure you seriously if I had a soul I should be very glad to part with it for a thousand pounds at the present moment. The soul wouldn’t be an atom of use to me and the thousand pounds would. But I feel convinced I shall win to-morrow!”
“I am equally sure you will!” returned Lucio affably, “In the meantime, you will not find my friend here, Geoffrey Tempest, a hard creditor,—he can afford to wait. But in the case of the lost soul,”—here he paused, looking straight into the young man’s eyes,—“of course I cannot afford to wait!”
The Viscount smiled vaguely at this pleasantry, and almost immediately afterwards left the club. As soon as the door had closed behind him, several of the gamesters exchanged sententious nods and glances.
“Ruined!” said one of them in a sotto-voce.
“His gambling debts are more than he can ever pay”—added another—“And I hear he has lost a clear fifty thousand on the turf.”
These remarks were made indifferently, as though one should talk of the weather,—no sympathy was expressed,—no pity wasted. Every gambler there was selfish to the core, and as I studied their hardened faces, a thrill of honest indignation moved me,—indignation mingled with shame. I was not yet altogether callous or cruel-hearted, though as I look back upon those days which now resemble a wild vision rather than a reality, I know that I was becoming more and more of a brutal egoist with every hour I lived. Still I was so far then from being utterly vile, that I inwardly resolved to write to Viscount Lynton that very evening, and tell him to consider his debt to me cancelled, as I should refuse to claim it. While this thought was passing through my mind, I met Lucio’s gaze fixed steadily upon me. He smiled,—and presently signed to me to accompany him. In a few minutes we had left the club, and were out in the cold night air under a heaven of frostily sparkling stars. Standing still for a moment, my companion laid his hand on my shoulder.
“Tempest, if you are going to be kind-hearted or sympathetic to undeserving rascals, I shall have to part company with you!” he said, with a curious mixture of satire and seriousness in his voice—“I see by the expression of your face that you are meditating some silly disinterested action of pure generosity. Now you might just as well flop down on these paving stones and begin saying prayers in public. You want to let Lynton off his debt,—you are a fool for your pains. He is a born scoundrel,—and has never seen his way to being anything else,—why should you compassionate him? From the time he first went to college till now, he has been doing nothing but live a life of degraded sensuality,—he is a worthless rake, less to be respected than an honest dog!”
“Yet some one loves him I daresay!” I said.
“Some one loves him!” echoed Lucio with inimitable disdain—“Bah! Three ballet girls live on him if that is what you mean. His mother loved him,—but she is dead,—he broke her heart. He is no good I tell you,—let him pay his debt in full, even to the soul he staked so lightly. If I were the devil now, and had just won the strange game we played to-night, I suppose according to priestly tradition, I should be piling up the fire for Lynton in high glee,—but being what I am, I say let the man alone to make his own destiny,—let things take their course,—and as he chose to risk everything, so let him pay everything.”
We were by this time walking slowly into Pall Mall,—I was on the point of making some reply, when catching sight of a man’s figure on the opposite side of the way, not far from the Marlborough Club, I uttered an involuntary exclamation.
“Why there he is!” I said—“there is Viscount Lynton!”
Lucio’s hand closed tightly on my arm.
“You don’t want to speak to him now, surely!”
“No. But I wonder where he’s going? He walks rather unsteadily.”
“Drunk, most probably!”
And Lucio’s face presented the same relentless expression of scorn I had so often seen and marvelled at.
We paused a moment, watching the Viscount strolling aimlessly up and down in front of the clubs,—till all at once he seemed to come to a sudden resolution, and stopping short, he shouted,
“Hansom!”
A silent-wheeled smart vehicle came bowling up immediately. Giving some order to the driver, he jumped in. The cab approached swiftly in our direction,—just as it passed us the loud report of a pistol crashed on the silence.
“Good God!” I cried reeling back a step or two—“He has shot himself!”
The hansom stopped,—the driver sprang down,—club-porters, waiters, policemen and no end of people starting up from Heaven knows where, were on the scene on an instant,—I rushed forward to join the rapidly gathering throng, but before I could do so, Lucio’s strong arm was thrown round me, and he dragged me by main force away.
“Keep cool, Geoffrey!” he said—“Do you want to be called up to identify? And betray the club and all its members? Not while I am here to prevent you! Check your mad impulses, my good fellow,—they will lead you into no end of difficulties. If the man’s dead he’s dead, and there’s an end of it.”
“Lucio! You have no heart!” I exclaimed, struggling violently to escape from his hold—“How can you stop to reason in such a case! Think of it! I am the cause of all the mischief!—it is my cursed luck at baccarat this evening that has been the final blow to the wretched young fellow’s fortunes,—I am convinced of it!—I shall never forgive myself—”
“Upon my word, Geoffrey, your conscience is very tender!” he answered, holding my arm still more closely and hurrying me away despite myself—“You